Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an environment-focused, sustainable lens to review interactions with students within campus and remove barriers.

In this session we'll discuss:

• What is the need currently experienced by post-secondary education in matters of inclusion?
• The changing landscape of access and inclusion in Higher Education.
• how to encourage our own practice to recognize these areas of ‘tension’ in current approaches to access.
• Explore o the definition and intentions of Universal Design for Learning.
• Reflect on how UDL might meet the ‘needs’ being experienced in Higher Education for a rapid change in access practices.

Our Speaker: Samantha John is the Accessible Media Coordinator in the Office of Academic Innovation at Portland State University. She created a faculty professional development program that includes peer review of syllabi and course activities that incorporate UDL and accessibility publishing conventions. She also developed the UDL Media Lab at PSU where students with disabilities work to identify barriers in curriculum.

Samantha's passion for inclusion and diversity drive her study and presentation of UDL and universal access related issues in higher education.